


Grace and Frankie Season 6: The (Hypothetical) Episode List

by dollsome



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 17:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 5,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17533211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: Thirteen imaginary episodes of Grace and Frankie season six, as summarized by someone who really needs them to live happily ever after.





	1. 6.01: The Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> The end of season five left me in an anguished tizzy (so say we all!), but I was also like, "Huh, how weird that I just have no ideas for post-s5 fic. My muse must truly be dead."
> 
> Then I sat down intending to write a little jokey list of what I wanted to see out of season six for Tumblr, and instead it got so huge and complicated that I had to post it here! This exists somewhere in the precarious realm of, like, Tumblr-ramble-that-occasionally-dips-into-being-fic. I apologize in advance for what a mess it is. But by golly, it's a mess full of feelings!
> 
> Disclaimer: This is definitely not a complete ~vision~ of season six. Most of the non-G&F characters don't factor in very much, and even all the scenes that would happen between G&F are not drawn in detail. Oops?
> 
> All links throughout this go to YouTube videos of the songs mentioned.

**6.01: The Freedom**

After the beach-sit of infinite despair, Frankie insists that she’s happy that Grace finally found her handsome capitalist monster dream guy and is finally getting a happily ever after; Grace in turn insists that she won’t really be gone and will always be there for Frankie, just a drive over. The amount of stuff being Angstily Not Said leaves piney period dramas in the dust. We do a little bit of a time skip montage set to [Kate Rusby’s cover of “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3OPZny6bMo) (bring the pain!!!), seeing Grace pack up her things and Frankie start putting touches of unbridled hippie style in the beach house.

They go about their somewhat separate lives for awhile. Frankie kind of digs not having Grace nagging her all the time and having the beach house to herself (and Joan Margaret)! Grace basks in the luxury of living at Nick’s penthouse, which is clean and organized (because he pays someone to clean and organize it, but whatever!). They both get to a defiant place of, “Now I can be ME rather than having to compromise parts of myself to make life work with her!”, which is obviously denial code for _I AM VERY SAD ABOUT THIS, I MISS WHO I WAS WHEN I WAS WITH YOU._

They see each other again at a family brunch celebrating Carl the Dog’s six month anniversary of joining the family. (“At least the justification for throwing these things isn’t getting totally fucking ridiculous,” says Grace to her Bloody Mary.) Nick comes along, since he’s technically part of the family now. Frankie—in peak hippie mode, at one with all the earth, zen and full of love!—gets super competitive with him playing dog-themed Celebrity, and it is clear to everyone that there is some deeper issue going on here. Nick and Frankie definitely stand on either side of Grace in classic onscreen love triangle fashion, because what is mise en scene for if not that?

“Fuck this bougie scene,” Frankie declares when Nick fails to guess ‘Homeward Bound’ based on her impeccable clues. “We’re outtie, Joan Margaret!”

“Right behind you, dear!”

Frankie still takes the time to pat Carl on the head before she goes, obviously—she’s not a monster—but there is a true discontentment blazing in her eyes. Grace watches her go with all the world’s wariness, and maybe mutters, “Oh, fuck.”

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [“Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYkbTyHXwbs). Yeah, I went there.

_I play along with the charade_   
_There doesn't seem to be a reason to change_   
_You know, I feel so dirty when they start talking cute_   
_I wanna tell her that I love her_   
_But the point is probably moot_


	2. 6.02: The Surprise Party

**6.02: The Surprise Party**

In an attempt to smooth things over with her, Nick enlists Frankie to throw a surprise post-wedding party -- a late reception, basically -- for Grace at the beach house. This is obviously Frankie’s worst nightmare, but she cannot find a logical reason to not want to throw a party for her best friend to celebrate the joyous occasion of her best friend’s discovery of late-in-life true love, so she and Nick are secret party planners together.

The party is improbably amazing -- Frankie reveals throughout it that she knows a ton about Grace and is, in fact, a Grace expert in a way that Grace would find hard to believe and Nick finds a little obscurely threatening -- and the whole Hanson/Bergstein gang attends.

Meanwhile, Robert has started a rival theatre troupe of his own after all the drama with Peter last season, and they attend the party as the performers. Someone sings [“Send In The Clowns”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODqj9Mq39FM) very beautifully as the ill-advised first dance song for Grace and Nick. (“Maybe we should have kept Peter around,” Robert frets. “He wouldn’t have let this happen. He would have judged it into nonexistence.”)

While Grace dances with Nick, she and Frankie stare at each other across the room and break all our god damn hearts with their faces. ( _I thought that you'd want what I want / Sorry, my dear._ ) Nick has the furrowed brow of “??? Uh oh.”

It eventually livens up into a more celebratory affair, but our love triangle cannot quite shake the melancholy. After the party, Grace offers to hang back to help clean up, but Frankie tells her that she’s got it; Grace should get home. We get a sad montage of Frankie cleaning up while Grace goes home to the penthouse.

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Patsy Cline, "You Belong To Me"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS9QdF_0I8Q)

_I'll be so alone without you_   
_Maybe you'll be lonesome too, and blue_


	3. 6.03: The Conspiracy

**6.03: The Conspiracy**

Frankie’s favorite celebrity gossip vlogger on YouTube (played by Chelsea Peretti) causes her quite a shock when said vlogger spins an elaborate conspiracy theory saying that Vybrant is actually run by young women—specifically, one young woman, pop sensation Kareena G!—pretending to be old ladies so that they can take advantage of the world’s most vulnerable horny population! How else do you explain why Kareena G’s famous pet pigs were spotted at a certain La Jolla beach house pretending to be the home of “Grace Hanson” and “Frankie Bergstein”, if they even exist??

Grace and Frankie, who are still acting tentative and Too Polite with each other in the wake of Grace’s marriage, go on an epic madcap adventure to prove their legitimacy and possibly challenge this vlogger to a public debate or a duel or something. In the meantime, they get an opportunity to really talk to each other and get out some honest feelings about Grace getting married without telling Frankie. Just because they don’t live together anymore, they decide, it doesn’t mean they can’t still be an epic team. Then they start their own Vybrant YouTube channel and prepare to dazzle the world. If they can actually figure out how to upload videos, that is.

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Sofi Tukker, “Best Friend”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grQDRC6aYFM)

_That's the way it is_   
_That's the way it goes_   
_It's just us two, it's deja-vu, it's what we know_   
_That's the way we like it, don't complicate_   
_No need to fight it, just invite it_   
_Yea-a-ah_


	4. 6.04: The Burglary, Part 2

**6.04: The Burglary, Part 2**

There’s a string of burglaries going on in La Jolla and Grace takes this as an opportunity to go have a little staycation-vacation at the beach house, since Nick’s out of town on business and Frankie can’t very well be left alone when there are burglaries happening (and after awhile, the perfect fancy townhouse gets kind of boring as shit).

This time, though, Grace is so thrilled to be back there that she actually participates in all of Frankie’s wild attempts to be Burglar Ready. Maybe she and Frankie form their own neighborhood watch of two. Definitely there are all-black outfits, complete with berets, and there’s some creeping around in the dark in the name of justice, possibly like Ray Donovan. (I, your author, still have no idea what Ray Donovan is about.) The neighbors wind up thinking Grace and Frankie are the burglars. Oh no! Shenanigans to the infinite degree!

Officer Torres is, fortunately, the law enforcement officer who shows up on the scene to arrest Grace and Frankie. He is very delighted to see his favorite cute marrieds again, and does not arrest them.

After their ordeal, Grace and Frankie chillax on the beach house sofa watching TV and snacking and smoking and lol-ing over the nonsense they’ve been through.

Grace, who is a little high and sleep-silly, says that this is way better than Nick’s stupid empty lonely penthouse.

Frankie agrees with that. A beat. “But you know you can’t stay forever. You put your forever somewhere else.”

“I know.”

In the morning, Grace—curled on the couch with Frankie resting on her—wakes up at a text alert from Nick. _“Could’ve sworn I left a glorious wife somewhere around here.”_ Grace smiles a slight, not-quite-happy-enough smile, texts back, gets up. She puts a pillow under Frankie’s head and covers her with a blanket, and then goes. Once she’s alone, Frankie opens her eyes, aware she’s been left.

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Jasmine Thompson, "I Try"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znJ6Dh_DyVU)

_Games, changes and fears_   
_When will they go from here?_   
_When will they stop?_   
_I believe that fate has brought us here_   
_And we should be together babe_   
_But we're not._


	5. 6.05: The Trip

**6.05: The Trip**

Grace and Nick go on a trip to a beautiful lodge in the mountains with terrible cell phone reception, because Grace is trying to make good on her promise for their marriage to be the kind where you run away on random spur-of-the-moment adventures together. This trip is supposed to be their finally-honeymoon. She orders that Frankie BE CAREFUL while she’s away. Frankie is indignant. “I’m not some toddler, Grace. I’m an independent diva with self sufficiency for days. Like Cher. Or Julian of Norwich.”

So as soon as Grace is gone, of course Frankie trips and falls and breaks her ankle. And Joan Margaret, bless her, is _not_ the best person to have around in an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” situation, though she tries. Does this land both Frankie and Joan Margaret in the hospital? Super probably.

Grace and Nick have a little blissful romantic mountain lodge time. Then, due to a freaked out call from Bud that gets dropped thanks to the spotty cell service, Grace finds out that Frankie’s in the hospital and thinks that it’s really serious and Frankie’s had another stroke. She freaks the hell out at Nick for wanting to go away (even though _she_ was the one who suggested going away) and winds up saying, “I have to be with her!” Nick is all, “We’ll get there as soon as we can; in the meantime, she’s got people there with her who’ll look out for her. Don’t worry.” And Grace says, “No, I have to be with  _her_.” (Subtext: And not you.) There is the dawning realization for Nick that, oh man, this is just not going to work. His wife has a wife.

Grace possibly treks down a mountain in impractical footwear holding her phone high above her head. She finally makes it back into an area with cell service and gets all the family texts that say Frankie just broke her ankle, she’s fine, and possibly Grace happy-cries at a selfie of Frankie eating Jello in a hospital bed and really weirds out a random bystander.

Grace shows up at the hospital with a huge bouquet of flowers ... to be told that visiting hours are over and she’ll have to come back tomorrow because she’s not family. She sits in the lobby with the flowers all night and goes in to see Frankie first thing in the morning.

“Wow, you look like shit, lady. What happened to you?”

“You happened. As always.”

She signs Frankie’s cast. (“I saved the best part for you.” “So side ankle is the best part, huh?” “Don’t pretend I haven’t caught you looking. You’re like a regency rake, Grace.”) Maybe there’s a close-up of Grace drawing a little heart next to her name. It’s just some really sappy cute business. Our girls, together again.

* * *

 **Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Belle and Sebastian, "If She Wants Me"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayjep-LOxM8)

 _I said goodbye to someone that I love_  
_It's not just me, I tell you it's the both of us_  
_And it was hard_  
_Like coming off the pills that you take to stay happy_

 _Someone above has seen me do alright_  
_Someone above is looking with a tender eye_  
_Upon her face, you may think you're alone but you may think again_

 _If I could do just one near perfect thing I'd be happy_  
_They'd write it on my grave, or when they scattered my ashes_  
_On second thought I'd rather hang about and be there with my best friend_  
_If she wants me_


	6. 6.06: The Hideout

**6.06: The Hideout**

Frankie bonds with Allison over being an invalid when she’s bedridden with her broken ankle. Meanwhile, in the wake of ending things with Nick, Grace stays with her daughters. For some reason she really, really doesn’t want to tell Frankie that her marriage failed, or why. It is Brianna’s worst nightmare to have her mother staying over, so she forces Grace over to Mallory’s house, which in turn is Grace’s worst nightmare because  _so many grandkids everywhere!!!_.

Eventually Grace seeks solace in Coyote’s tiny house and they kinda unexpectedly bond, because we all want to see that plotline and now it’s gonna happen! She winds up telling Coyote, who is a surprisingly good listener, that she broke up with Nick because it was too hard to be away from Frankie or prioritize someone else over Frankie. She realizes that even though she loved Nick, she married him for the wrong reason, which was to try to make a new life after the future she’d counted on seemed gone. Nick deserves more than that. Maybe later she goes along to one of Coyote’s NA meetings just to get out of the house and away from the billion children (and to avoid Frankie, whose calls she’s dodging), and what she hears there really resonates with her more than she’d like. Even if she’s definitely not a place where she will ever publicly admit that she might have a problem like that.

In the last scene, Frankie hobbles her way on crutches over to the front door to find Grace standing there. Grace tells Frankie that it’s come to her attention that she occasionally tries to bury her feelings by whatever means necessary. Pills. Booze. Amazing sarcasm.

“Yeah, no shit,” says Frankie.

Grace says, not burying for once, “I miss you, and I’m coming home.”

“But what about ...?”

“I’m coming home. So let me in, okay?”

All the world’s love on Frankie’s face. “Okay.”

Grace walks inside to Frankie. It is the most romantic opening of a door to let someone in since 11x03 of The X-Files, when Mulder and Scully finally, finally got an almost-onscreen hookup, or maybe since Frankie last let Grace inside in “The Pot.”

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, "Home"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHEOF_rcND8)

_Ah, home, let me go home_   
_Home is wherever I'm with you_


	7. 6.07: The Chickens

**6.07: The Chickens**

Frankie, out of commission due to her broken leg, remembers that she’d finally decided to defiantly live her dream and be a chicken owner ... when chickens show up at the front door and Grace is the one who has to take care of them.

“I always said NO CHICKENS.”

“Yeah, well, you were gone! If you got married, then I sure as hell got chickens!”

Grace sees the fairness here, and vows to be a good chicken co-owner (“Chicken co- _mother_ ,” Frankie corrects sternly) until Frankie is on her feet again.

Cue shenanigans! Nonsense! Grace being really exhausted at getting hurled full force back into peak Life With Frankie! At the end, Nick stops by to return the signed divorce papers and really drinks in all the chaos. It is exactly how you don’t want your dashing recently-ex-husband to find you. Are there feathers in Grace’s hair? Super probably.

Grace groans, “You’re probably wondering why I chose life with Kooky over you. Over us.”

“Not really. It’s because you love her.”

Grace (a mess; fed up; quite possibly holding a living, breathing chicken): “Yeah.”

Frankie: “GRAAAAACE! MEATLOAF!”

“That’s love’s Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers impression.”

“Good luck, Grace Hanson.”

“Ha.” She kisses him goodbye—the chicken probably fluffs its feathers indignantly in between them—then goes back to Frankie.

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Lord Huron, "Fool for Love"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvoJ7qUh3y8)

_Before I commence my ride_   
_I'm asking Lily to be my bride_   
_I know there's another man_   
_But he ain't gonna delay my plans_

_I know she's gonna be my wife_   
_Gonna fall in love I'm gonna live my life with her_   
_You know I bet he's not so tough_   
_Ain't afraid of him cause I'm a fool for love_


	8. 6.08: The Mystery

**6.08: The Mystery**

Robert and Sol throw one of those 1930s-themed murder mystery parties at their house. Throughout the course of the very zany and fabulous-costumed evening, Frankie can’t quite focus on the murder – even though participating in one of these is obviously one of her lifelong dreams! – because she keeps worrying to her family about why Grace broke up with Nick. Grace still hasn’t said just what happened, and even though Frankie is over the moon to have her back, she’s worried that Grace is doing that thing again where she denies herself happiness because she’s scared. She’s trying to figure out if she should urge Grace to give Nick another chance. She texts Nick to try to get him to come sweep Grace off her feet in 1930s period attire, but he refuses, insisting that “It’s all on you now, Kooky”, which just gets Frankie more agitated. Finally, when Frankie has begun to concoct a Grace/Nick reunion scheme that sounds a lot like the plot of Stephen King’s _Misery_ , Coyote breaks and tells her the reason Grace and Nick ended.

Grace is understandably upset that he didn’t keep it secret, but Coyote insists you should tell people when you’ve chosen them, because otherwise you can miss out on a lot. (In a possible Coyote/Mallory resurgence? Where maybe Coyote is sort of jelly of Mallory’s cute principal bf? Maybe! Who _can’t_ we matchmake in these families? Imagine the hilarity of Bud and Brianna realizing they are the only ones who escaped that curse.)

Grace and Frankie go out to Robert and Sol’s patio to have a space alone to talk.

“I think that’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever done for me. And Sol once carved a perfect likeness of my face into a tree.”

“It wasn’t just for you.”

“I get it. For Nick. Because you couldn’t string him and his beautiful head of hair along when your feelings were only so-so.”

“For me. Because -- because it hurts how dull my life is when I don’t see you every day.”

“ _Oh._ ”

Heart eyes in the moonlight!!!!

They go back inside to find that everyone else is in the middle of acting out the dramatic climax to the murder mystery, with a lot of shouting in silly old-movie accents and hands waving in accusation and maybe Brianna pretending to die, with fake blood capsules for authenticity. Everyone’s turning on each other with vicious, melodramatic intensity!

“Oh, shit,” mutters Frankie. “I forgot. I think I’m the murderer. Should I tell them?”

“Nah,” says Grace.

They kick back together on the sofa in their fancy flapper outfits and watch the chaos unfold.

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Madeleine Peyroux, “Dance Me To The End Of Love”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch6h278GEpA)

_Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin_   
_Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in_   
_Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove_   
_Dance me to the end of love_


	9. 6.09: The Reunion

**6.09: The Reunion**

Frankie’s sister Teddy reaches out to Frankie and decides that they should try to be in each other’s lives. Frankie throws a Bergstein family get-together to try to make up for lost time, and everyone learns more about Frankie’s past than Frankie had necessarily wanted them to. Meanwhile, Grace and Teddy get along swimmingly, and Teddy is of the opinion that Grace might be the one sensible decision Frankie has ever made in her life. Grace is weirdly flattered when Teddy tells her this.

Before she leaves, Teddy tells Frankie that her roommate is gay. “Ha ha,” Frankie says. “Very funny. Wait. That was funny, wasn’t it? I can’t tell, because your sense of humor is so newborn it’s still wobbling around on little colt legs.” Teddy just gives her a mysterious look and leaves. Frankie stares after her in bafflement. What the what?

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Sister Sledge, "We Are Family"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdsqht1m1rE)

_Ev'ryone can see we're together_   
_As we walk on by_   
_And we fly just like birds of a feather_   
_I won't tell no lie_   
_All of the people around us they say_   
_Can they be that close?_


	10. 6.10: The Insta-Fame

**6.10: The Insta-Fame**

An Instagram influencer (played by Jameela Jamil, who might have a rivalry with Chelsea Perretti’s vlogger from earlier this season) discovers Frankie’s paintings online and gets totally obsessed with them. Suddenly they are in high demand and Frankie deals with unexpected fame as an artist. And then!! Grace and Frankie are invited to socialize with Jameela’s entourage of flawless Instagram ladies. Frankie is an artistic genius, after all, and as the founder of Say Grace, Grace is basically the original influencer!

Grace and Frankie are both pretty flattered by this ... until they discover that these women’s lives are an unceasing hell of trying to crop out all sadness all the time. (“Oh my God, Grace, I finally understand what Ingrid Goes West was about!” “What did you think it was about?” “Just a plucky Scandinavian cowgirl trying her best!” “Frankie, we _watched_ that movie.”)

Eventually, at the crux of the episode where Frankie must decide whether she should sell out, Jameela the Influencer offers her an enormous amount of money for the Vampire Martini Grace painting. Frankie decides, even in the face of all this temptation, she has to draw the line somewhere.

(“Maybe if you’d said nine million dollars ...”

Jameela: “Oh! Would you like nine million dollars?”

“Damn it, resolve! Steel yourself!”)

This certainly leads to a scene where Frankie runs away while holding said giant portrait of Grace, which is a visual we all need in our lives. At the end of the episode, Grace and Frankie decide that actually, it’s pretty kick-ass to be at a stage in your life where you aren’t crippled by trying so desperately hard to be perfect, and you can just have a great time with your ride-or-die bff. They decide to celebrate this by going to Frankie’s new utopia, Dave and Buster’s, because I think at this point, we’ve all earned an adorable silly montage of Grace and Frankie romping their way through Dave and Buster’s. They take a bunch of goofy pictures in a photo booth. At the end of the episode, they hang the pictures on front of the fridge, because by golly, those pictures have gotten the two likes that matter most.

"I mean ours," Frankie adds, unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I picked up on that," Grace says.

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, "Downtown"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-uVkrzo8eU)

_She has her arms around your waist_   
_With a balance that will keep her safe_


	11. 6.11: The Institution

**6.11: The Institution**

One night, Barry proposes to Brianna (when they are both in sweats, watching someone have a bitchy meltdown on reality TV, not in public, Spit the doggo resting in between them). It breaks Brianna’s brain.

The next day, Brianna caustically angsts about whether this ruins their relationship and rants hatefully about the institution of marriage ... while, at the same time, kind of wanting to say yes because Barry is great and she super loves him. (“But I’ll cut anyone who says that.” “ _You_ just said that,” Mallory points out. Brianna look vaguely horrified with herself.) Some of Brianna’s old issues with marriage – specifically rooted in growing up with Grace and Robert as unhappily married parents! – come out, and most of the episode is her and Mallory and Grace and Frankie having thoughtful chats about married life, what it means to be a wife, etc.

“Why does marriage have to be anything besides what you want it to be?” Grace finally says. “You love each other, you want to spend the rest of your lives together. That’s all that really matters. Fuck the rest of it.”

Brianna takes that to (frigid) heart and decides to say yes—in a public, cheesy, uber-romantic setting that involves a flash mob because she knows Barry will love it. Confetti definitely rains down. Meanwhile, standing in the crowd of merry spectators, Grace looks at Frankie (who is radiantly having the time of her life – hello, flash mob! Confetti!!! – and trying to master all the dance steps even though she’s not part of the flash mob) with an expression of, “Hmm ... But no, that’d be crazy! ... but hmm ...”

* * *

 **Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, "For Me And My Gal"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91lLZki6rdI)

 _The bells are ringing for me and my gal_  
_The birds are singing for me and my gal_  
_Well everyone's been knowin' to a wedding they're goin'_  
_And for weeks they've been sewing, every Susie and Sal_

 _They're congregatin' for me and my gal_  
_The parson's waitin' for me and my gal_  
_And sometime we're gonna build a little home for two, or three, or four, or more_  
_In love land for me and my gal_


	12. 6.12: The Proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I am walking the line of "obviously they are in canon romantic stylez love" vs. "something that the show itself might actually plausibly put onscreen" so precariously that I might as well be some kind of fancy circus performer.

**6.12: The Proposal**

One morning at breakfast, right after chastising Frankie for pouring gummy bears into the granola, Grace asks Frankie to marry her. It’s purely pragmatic. They’ve pretty much decided to live together in the beach house for the rest of their lives. They’re— _resigned sigh_ —chicken parents now. As a married couple, they’d be afforded lots of benefits that they don’t get as single women. Remember when Grace wasn’t allowed to visit her at the hospital? That’s the kind of thing that’s just going to keep happening.

“Says who? I’m a Bear Gryllsian she-goddess of self-preservation.”

“You just turned the burner on with your robe when you walked past it. In five seconds your hair will be on fire.”

“Aw, damn it.”

Probably Grace has a PowerPoint or two prepared to really prove how well thought out and heterosexual this plan is. Frankie draws lots of whiteboard illustrations of her emotions in response, trying to sort through the whirlwind. The whole thing is basically just a bottle episode where they have a big debate over whether this would be in any way a good idea, reflecting upon their past conflicts and triumphs, what they are to each other, really digging into the essence of what it means to be Grace-and-Frankie.

Finally, after a rollercoaster ride of great dialogue and poignant insights, we find them sitting in the moonlight in their beach chairs.

Grace finally just admits, “I think it would be a lot of fun.” So as to not suggest that she thinks being married to Frankie would be fun (even though that’s what she means), she adds, “You know, to confuse the shit out of everybody.”

Now, this is something Frankie can get behind. “It would, wouldn’t it?”

“And just imagine Sol and Robert’s reactions.”

That is all Frankie needs. “Oh, Grace, I do!”

Grace, trying not to laugh and failing: “You say that later.”

“I don’t care. I do, I do, I do!” Frankie jumps out of her chair and into Grace’s lap and covers her in sloppy cheek-kisses and Grace doesn’t even bother to pretend she’s not having the time of her life.

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Fleetwood Mac, “You Make Loving Fun”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJo3Rq5Fubc)

_I never did believe in miracles_   
_But I've a feeling it's time to try_   
_I never did believe in the ways of magic_   
_But I'm beginning to wonder why_


	13. 6.13: The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to [this tumblr post](http://dollsome-does-tumblr.tumblr.com/post/182148812893/the-only-logical-ending-for-grace-and-frankie-is), which really lays out the basic premise of this, the final installment!
> 
> I am pretty embarrassed by how emotional I got writing this ridiculous mess?!?!?!
> 
> Behold: my vision for a series ending wherein the people who don't ship it can be all, "Well, they seem like very good friends!", and the people who do can find sweet, joyful peace after all these years of suffering over our beloved gay grandmas.

**6.13: The Beginning**

We start off with a flashback to the first time that Grace and Frankie met, at a restaurant out to dinner with Robert and Sol. (Ooh, ahh, pilot parallels!) Meanwhile in modern day, Grace and Frankie call a family meeting to announce that they’re going to throw a Platonic Wedding For The Purpose Of Being Legally Recognized As Each Other’s Platonic Significant Others. This confuses all of their family members to some degree, but at the same time, everyone’s pretty much like, “Yeah, this might as well happen. This checks out.” Besides, Brianna points out, it is not as traumatizing as the We’re Going To Make Old Lady Vibrators family meeting.

Robert and Sol have a little extra “??” moment once they’re alone together.

“If I’d known this would be the outcome, I would have told them twenty years earlier,” Robert marvels.

“All that lost time,” Sol reflects. They hold hands, a bittersweet little moment.

Then—

“You don’t think they actually ... you know?” Sol furrows his brow.

“Who knows.” Robert, after a moment’s reflection on his first marriage: “In fact, it would explain a lot.”

“Huh,” says Sol.

Grace and Frankie have decided to make this their Fuck It Wedding, where they both just pick out absolutely everything they might have wanted at any point in their lives as part of their dream nuptials.

“There should be a white horse,” Grace suggests. “That’s classic, right?”

“White horse it is!” Frankie cries. “And while we’re on the subject of giant beasts with hooves: may I also recommend a white llama?”

“Fine. White llama it is!”

While they complete their bonkers delightful impromptu wedding preparations, running silly errands about town and seeing if Del Taco will cater and possibly (nay—definitely) picking out a wedding piñata, the episode continues to cut back to their first meeting.

In it, Robert and Sol are called away on a work emergency and Grace and Frankie are left to finish dinner together. They realize that in a way they have a lot in common: lonely with their husbands working so much; no kids yet and starting to get antsy about it; not quite sure how to be a wife in the way you’re supposed to be a wife in those days, while both their husbands have work to devote themselves to. But then one of them says something a little wrong, and the other puts her defenses up, and it turns quickly into an argument where they judge the heck out of everything about each other.

Meanwhile, in modern day, the most magnificent beach wedding in history is underway! You get the sense that the ghost of Babe is here and she is smiling. (Does she have an actual cameo? Maybe!) All of our faves from previous seasons, like Sheree and Officer Torres and [Insert Your Fave That I’ve Forgotten], are here.

Grace wears a devastatingly chic white pantsuit and Frankie wears a gorgeous ridiculous dress that can probably best be summarized as Galadriel from Lord of the Rings meets Miss Frizzle. Frankie’s favorite Del Taco manager, played by—yes—Dolly Parton, officiates the ceremony, a thing that Grace approves of now that she’s actually eaten at Del Taco.

“Grace,” Frankie says when vow time comes, “I hated the shit out of you for forty years. Which, honestly, raise your hand if you can blame me.” Brianna lowers her hand until it is touching the sandy ground. “This ice queen was a tough, scary ice nut to crack. But I wish I had tried harder, because then maybe I would have found you sooner. I’ve been on a lot of journeys in my life, but nothing beats ours. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be standing.”

“Not even Del Taco?” Grace deadpans, to mask her feels.

Frankie considers it. “Surprisingly, no.”

It’s Grace’s vows time.

“Frankie,” she says (teary Jane Fonda tearing all our hearts to pieces!). “You drive me crazy. But that’s good. It turns out I really needed crazy in my life. And I love you.”

Frankie mouths “I love you” back, all heart-eyes.

“I now pronounce you wife and wife!” says Del Taco’s own Dolly Parton. “You may kiss the bride!”

Grace and Frankie make cute, jokey-confused faces at each other.

“Do we do that?” Grace asks.

Frankie shrugs. “Might as well.”

They make good on their many billion innuendos and kiss each other’s mouths at last!! Everybody hollers in glee.

“Why am I crying?” Brianna asks, freaked, as moved tears stream down her face. “Oh God, is this emotion? Why??” Barry pats her shoulder reassuringly.

Cut to the flashback. Young Grace and Frankie walk out of the restaurant in a huff and take off in opposite directions. Both of them turn back to look at the other as they go, but out of sync, so they both miss that they’re not the only one who did.

Cut to modern day, a happy wedding montage—Grace and Frankie shoving cake into each other’s faces; groovin’ on the dance floor together and later with their ex-husbands and kids and grandkids; Grace hitting the hell out of the wedding piñata while Frankie cheers rhapsodically; Frankie throwing a garter into the ocean and yelling “For the seals!” while Grace looks on in grave concern; etc. Possibly “So Happy Together” is playing. It’s That Cute.

Off this vision of sparkly, incandescent joy, we are hurled abruptly back into the flashback.

“You know my primary goal is to bring good vibes to the universe. You know I’ve even found things to compliment mosquitoes on. But believe me when I say: I hate that bitch.” Young Frankie, back at home with Sol.

A quick cut to the Hansons. “I hope you don’t think I’m ever spending another evening with that deranged lunatic,” says young Grace to Robert.

Back to the Bergsteins.“I know she’s a little ... terrifying,” says Sol, “but maybe if you just get to know her—”

Back to Hansons. “If you just spent a little more time with her, and reserved judgment for once—” says Robert.

“ _No_ ,” says Frankie to Sol.

“ _No_ ,” says Grace to Robert.

(Possibly the above-mentioned moment is in split screen.)

Grace and Frankie, this final flashback tells us, is so never happening.

Cut to our Grace and Frankie strolling down the beach in the sunset, backs to us, arm in arm and happy as clams, bantering affectionately. We pan back slowly, Grace and Frankie getting smaller in the distance, to see everyone dancing and mingling at the beach party (and maybe petting the llama). Then we reach the buffet table and the half-eaten wedding cake. The little Grace and Frankie figurines stand on top beside each other, exactly where they should be.

* * *

**Last Scene/End Credits Music:** [Etta James, “At Last”.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-cbOl96RFM) Yeah, I went there.

_I found a dream that I could speak to_   
_A dream that I can call my own_   
_I found a thrill to press my cheek to_   
_A thrill I've never known_   
_You smiled, you smiled, oh, and then the spell was cast_   
_And here we are in heaven_   
_For you are mine at last._


End file.
